Around the World

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

IRAQ

Biden Assures Leaders Of Ongoing U.S. Amity

Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr. arrived in Baghdad on Monday for the last leg of a trip that included stops in Pakistan and Afghanistan, battlegrounds the Obama administration will inherit in a week.

Biden met with Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a staunch U.S. ally, whose office said in a statement that Biden had assured the Iraqis that "Obama and the new administration are Iraq's friends."

The Democratic senator from Delaware, accompanied by Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), didn't speak to reporters during his first day in Baghdad, and a spokeswoman at the U.S. Embassy said there was no plan to organize a news conference Tuesday.

The visit occurred on a day when a series of attacks in Baghdad killed at least eight people and wounded more than two dozen, according to Iraqi officials.

In the New Baghdad neighborhood, in southeastern Baghdad, a suspected magnetic bomb detonated under a crane about 7 a.m., residents said. When police officers and others rushed toward the site of the blast, a man in a white sedan drove toward the crowd, jumped out of the vehicle and detonated explosives inside it. Three people were killed, including an Iraqi policeman who tried to prevent the driver of the vehicle from approaching.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military announced Monday that it turned over control of one of its largest bases in Anbar province, in western Iraq, to the Iraqi government. Camp Fallujah is the latest of several large bases the U.S. military has shut down.

-- Ernesto Londoño

UKRAINE

Russian Gas to Flow

Russia's state gas monopoly has promised to resume shipping Europe-bound natural gas through Ukraine on Tuesday, nearly a week after it shut off the taps.

However, a spokesman for the Gazprom monopoly indicated that lingering problems could still prolong the crisis.

More than 15 countries have been caught in the middle of a complex and acrimonious wrangle between Russia and Ukraine over gas prices, past debts and allegations of theft. They also jockeyed over a European Union-brokered deal to send pipeline monitors to ensure that restored gas shipments reach their destination.

Russia balked at the deal after Ukraine tried to add a rider declaration that offended Moscow. Ukrainian government officials clarified the deal Monday and said the declaration was not legally binding.

After that, Gazprom's deputy chairman, Alexander Medvedev, said gas supplies would be started Tuesday "if there are no obstacles."

GERMANY

Stimulus Package Set

Germany's ruling coalition reached agreement Monday on a new economic stimulus package, worth 50 billion euros, aimed at helping Europe's largest economy through what could be its worst postwar recession.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats and their Social Democrat partners agreed on the mixture of investment spending and tax cuts in six hours of negotiations, coalition leaders said.

The parties narrowed differences on tax relief measures, the final sticking point, during the talks and agreed on a set of compromises that allowed all sides to claim victory.

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Somali Presidential Palace Hit

Islamist insurgents fired mortar rounds at Somalia's presidential palace, and witnesses said at least 13 people were killed in that attack and a separate one. The insurgents shelled the palace as Prime Minister Nur Hassan Hussein was meeting with African Union peacekeepers and members of an Islamist group that has signed a power-sharing deal, government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdon said. He added that no one in the palace was hurt.

Zimbabwe's $50 Billion Note

Zimbabwe's central bank released a $50 billion note -- worth 1.25 U.S. dollars at Monday's black market exchange rate. Two weeks ago, $50 billion was worth $3.30 in U.S. dollars.

From News Services